


you are standing on pulsing clouds (and you were okay)

by burnshoney



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Cuddling & Snuggling, Fluff and Smut, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Married Couple, Pre-Canon, Sad Ending, does it count as death if ur moon husband is stuck in a coin purse, i think it does here, it's a struggle, take a shot every time the author wrote tinker instead of ethari
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-29
Updated: 2019-11-29
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:47:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21608551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burnshoney/pseuds/burnshoney
Summary: Ethari takes a soft breath in. "I may think she's too soft-hearted to complete her first kill," he murmurs, "but I trust you, Runaan. You've always known Rayla better than I and if you and she think she's ready, I won't object."His husband tilts his head up, hands splaying out against Ethari's spine. Through the fabric of his tunic, Ethari can feel the slight chill of Runaan's fingers as they stroke over the notches in his back in small motions. "Thank you," Runaan murmurs and leans up to capture his lips.
Relationships: Runaan/Ethari (The Dragon Prince), Runaan/Tinker | Necklace Elf (The Dragon Prince)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 175





	you are standing on pulsing clouds (and you were okay)

**Author's Note:**

> this fic is to celebrate 1.3k followers on twitter and to mark a week since i started crying over ruthari. yes i'll never stop. yes i love these moon husbands and their kickass adopted daughter.
> 
> enjoy!! title from poetry bot on twitter

"I've decided she's ready."

Ethari half-turns from his worktable, trinkets in his hand forgotten. He sets down his whetstone. "Do you think she's ready?"

"Rayla's the fastest and the strongest of us all," Runaan says simply and shrugs before looking down at the blades in his lap. One, already sharpened, is hanging up, glinting dimly in the torchlight. "I was her age when I went on my first mission." Ethari studies his husband with a raised eyebrow before standing and crossing his workshop.

"She is not you," he reminds his husband in a hushed tone, all the too familiar to Rayla's bedchamber just up the stairs. It's telling that she didn't immediately tell him when she came in from training that night but simply disappeared into her room. 

Ethari knows if he strained to hear, he could hear her sharpening her own twin blades. 

Runaan hangs his head for a moment, white hair falling over his shoulders. Ethari leans down to encircle his husband's shoulders with his arms and steps between his legs until the blade in Runaan's lap is forgotten. "I know," the assassins admits quietly. "I know she isn't, but I think she's ready. If Adhira and Taral were here-"

"They aren't though," Ethari soothes and presses his cheek to the crown of Runaan's head. After a moment, his husband's arms come around to rest on the small of his back. "They aren't, darling, but we're here for Rayla. I don't know if she's ready. She's too soft-hearted."

Runaan chuckles, the vibrations rumbling through him. "You say that like it's a bad thing, love, but so are  _ you _ . I think you turned out fine."

"Charmer," Ethari accuses him with a contented hum and a soft, comfortable silence falls between them. 

Somewhere between then and now Runaan's second blade has been propped against the chair Ethari keeps in his workshop just for his husband and it's easy to slide into Runaan's lap instead. Immediately Runaan is nuzzling his face into the crook of Ethari's neck, nosing his way against the purple scarf embroidered with white thread and Ethari cards a hand through his husband's loose hair. It's not often the assassin lets it down, fully, and so Ethari takes his time in simply curling his fingertips against Runaan's scalp and feeling him relax beneath him.

Ethari takes a soft breath in. "I may think she's too soft-hearted to complete her first kill," he murmurs, "but I trust you, Runaan. You've always known Rayla better than I and if you and she think she's ready, I won't object."

His husband tilts his head up, hands splaying out against Ethari's spine. Through the fabric of his tunic, Ethari can feel the slight chill of Runaan's fingers as they stroke over the notches in his back in small motions. "Thank you," Runaan murmurs and leans up to capture his lips.

It's inevitable and all too familiar and Ethari melts into it. Runaan's lips are chapped from the nip of night air, deliciously cold and Ethari takes his husband's face in his hands. He cups Runaan's cheeks, tilting his head up in the slightest and sighs into the kiss when Runaan sweeps his tongue over the seam of his lips.

Runaan's chuckle seems to reverberate throughout him. "Why don't we take this to the bedroom," he murmurs against Ethari's lips when he pulls back so he can catch his breath. "I think we learned our lesson last time."

Perched on his husband's hips, feeling like he's just drank his weight in spiced wine from the buzz that seems to travel through his legs, Ethari's muddled brain skips. He laughs, breathlessly, and slips off Runaan's lap. He holds out his hand.

There's no hesitation in the way his husband threads his fingers through his. Their palms press together and Runaan is shadowing his every step towards the door of their bedroom, chest pressed close to Ethari's back when Ethari stops dead. "Wait."

"Love?"

Ethari twists, leading Runaan by their intertwined hands back to his worktable. It's messy, parts of his tinkering strewn about but Ethari bypasses it all to root through the drawer. 

He shivers when Runaan's breath ghosts over the back of his neck. "Not helping," he gasps breathlessly with a smile and his husband laughs.

"Am I distracting you, darling?"

Ethari opens another drawer as Runaan's body presses close to his. The hands framing his hips come around to lay low on his stomach and Ethari bites back a sigh at the feeling, determined. "Yes."

"Good," Runaan hums and kisses the nape of his neck. His horns knock dully against the back of Ethari's head and Ethari trembles. Resolve thinning with every chaste kiss to the exposed skin from where his husband is pulling at the collar of his clothes, he reaches for the final drawer.

Runaan's lips close over the skin at the side of his neck and Ethari is letting his eyes flutter closed when he spots it. "Found it!" he announces and Runaan smiles against his shoulders from where his mouth has moved to pepper kisses between darts of his tongue.

"Found what, my darling?"

Wiggling his hips, Ethari manages to turn in his husband's embrace. He's pinned between Runaan's greedy mouth and the lip of his worktable and doesn't protest when his husband's mouth on his neck between his high collar and jaw scoots him back onto the surface until he's seated. Runaan's hips notch between Ethari's spread legs like he was made to go there, a cog in a clock sliding perfectly into place and his hands come to grasp Ethari's waist. Giggling breathlessly, Ethari buries a hand in his husband's white tresses and tugs gently to get his attention. "Pay attention, dear. I'm trying to give you a present."

Runaan's mouth separates from his neck with a wet noise that makes Ethari's head spin. A hand travels from Ethari's waist to trace over the already-swollen bridge of his upper lip before coming to rest against the curve of his cheek. 

"I'm always paying attention to you," he murmurs and Ethari flushes dully as he holds out the small box. 

He forgets, sometimes, the romantic at heart his husband is.

Without taking it, Runaan flips open the top and his breath hitches in his throat. When he looks up at Ethari, there's tears on his lashline, threatening to spill over, making his eyes an even icier blue than normal; ice on a windowsill. 

_ "This-"  _ he breathes, "-this is a moon opal. They're extremely rare, Ethari, how did you-?"

Ethari silences him with a swift kiss, blinking away the tears in his own eyes so he can see but letting them fall freely. "For you," he murmurs and reaches for his scarf. 

Runaan follows the motion and swallows thickly when Ethari lays the violet-dyed cloth aside. A matching moon opal, surrounded by swirls of delicate metal melded together seamlessly, lays against his chest. With shaking fingers, Runaan holds the box containing the other up to his chest until they're level and Ethari curls his hand around it.

"I don't understand," Runaan says weakly. "What-"

"My love will be with you even when the moon is not," Ethari says simply. He seems unable to tear his eyes away from his husband's face, wide and vulnerable, unable to even blink. He brushes his hand over Runaan's cheek, fingers coming away wet.

He leans forward so their foreheads touch. Runaan's breath is ragged with emotion and Ethari's fingers curl in the fabric at his husband's shoulders like he's physically rooting them to the spot. "Come back," he whispers hoarsely. "Come back to me -  _ both of you." _

It goes unspoken, how Ethari's hands tremble where they hold Runaan. He's lost his best friends just as Runaan has and the girl upstairs with Adhira's eyes and Taral's nose is the last piece of them they both have left. Ethari is  _ afraid;  _ the fear of losing his husband combined with the fear of breaking his promise to his best friends runs like ice through his veins until he seems unable to see through the veil of tears.

Runaan clutches at him, understanding clear in his eyes. 

"I promise to return this to you," Runaan says, hushed, hand gripping the pendant and Ethari kisses him then. "I promise to return to  _ you." _

For now, it's enough. Runaan closes his eyes as Ethari slips the pendant around his neck and promises to make a more permanent chain when he and Rayla return. Runaan gazes down at it, jokes wetly that she'll want one, too, and Ethari tearily laughs before he's kissing his husband deeply. Their tears mix on their cheeks, smearing across lips and jawlines as kisses travel and they finally,  _ finally,  _ make it to their bedroom. It's wordless, the way Ethari begs with every inch of pale skin he kisses for his husband to come home and Runaan shudders quietly beneath him in a promise to do so. 

Fingers find their way together and Ethari can't sleep long into the night. Head propped up on Runaan's bare chest, he gazes out the window at where he knows the pond is; knows all too well that tomorrow morning six lotuses will float on its surface and he'll wait for weeks at the poolside, praying with every minute none sink.

Rayla is asleep when he lingers outside her door. He's barefoot, only in one of Runaan's long tunics and chuckles quietly when he slips her blades from between limp fingers. The whetstone finds its way onto the small table beside her bed and he lifts the blanket over her sleeping form.  She doesn't even flinch. He stops in the doorway, watches the way her white hair falls across her cheek when she shifts onto her side and looks so much like Adhira for a moment that Ethari's throat constricts.

He won't lose her the way he lost her parents; his best friends. He _refuses to._

His husband shifts sleepily when Ethari climbs back into bed. "Welcome back," Runaan rumbles blearily, kissing his shoulder from where Ethari shed the tunic and the tinker slots himself against the solid form of his husband.

"I'm back," he murmurs and watches how Runaan's eyes lid at the words. His hand splays against the dip of his husband's chest and when Runaan covers it with his own, Ethari smiles weakly and looks down at their fingers. _"I'm back."_

It's all he can hope that just as he returns to Runaan, Runaan will return to him. It feels too heavy to say within the walls of their bedroom, though, and Ethari closes his eyes.

They'll come home.  _ They have to. _

He doesn't know what he'll do if they don't.

A torn, hollow sob tears through Silvergrove as one lotus sinks further than Ethari can catch it, slipping through his fingers when he grasps desperately at it and he holds himself as the other four do, too. He's helpless to watch the water swallow them until the light inside the bud fades under the dark blue, lost to time and the world and life and his heart.

One remains, pulsing with life, almost as if to taunt him.

When the other elves come to him, Ethari is the first to stand, the spell sliding over his tongue like a betrayal. But what is a graver deception - one lotus left on the pond's surface, or faceless elves left in the wake?


End file.
